What is Power?

Power. There are lots of different types of power. There is physical, mental, social power, and of course energy. Physical power is power in the form of strength or energy. It means you are physically capable of doing something that requires immense power. It is shown as strength, muscles, and really any thing that you do that is hard. You may need physical power for some things, and not for others, but physical power is somewhat important. Secondly, there is mental power, which is not the ability to move thing with your mind, but includes will power and other types of "power" which allows you to keep going and trying when all else fails. Mental power is very important for many reasons. Our mental power is the power that allows us to succeed in whatever we do. If we had not will or mental power, then we would give up to easily therefore ensuring low chances for success. Thirdly, there is social power, which is the type of power that rulers, and representatives. Those people have the power to change the way we behave, do things, etc. Social power is also found in leaders and people who begin to and/or change the world. Energy is the power that enables us and everything else to do what is does. A computer runs on electricity, a form of energy. A river runs on kinetic and potential energy. Wind has energy. The water has energy. Everything has energy, which is also a form of power. In the end, power is a lot of different things, but most importantly, it is human desire. Not only the feeling of human desire, but the actual thing. Humans want power. They always have, and always will. That is what power is, and what it will always be.

Globalization Cartoon Analysis

The main visual elements of this cartoon are the father, and her daughter, and what he is saying to her. This cartoon is about globalization and how it will impact the next generation. As you can see, the speech bubble indicates that the next generation will either be the real step towards a globalized community, or they will use globalization to their advantage in the wrong way. It also indicates that the next generation will adopt to globalization a lot easier than the older generation will. Along with that, globalization will impact in truth every little aspect of everything. I believe that the cartoonist supports the idea of globalization but dislikes the fact that it will have an impact on everything instead of just on politics, economy, etc. To make the cartoon more persuasive, the cartoonist could have changed the way the daughter acted or dressed to make it look like she is more globalized than her father.

Population Project Points

I learned some valuable things from population project. I learned:

• How to organize notes and research
• How to do a data analysis,
  
• About rainwater harvesting and other things related to my topic.
  

These were all important. Of course the first two could be used in other projects and future things, while the last one is important because I should know about what is going on in our world, and the earth we live on.

Sameness or Equality

In Animal Farm, the author uses the word ‘equality’, yet in The Giver, the author uses ‘sameness’. I believe that these were used correctly.

You see, sameness means that everybody is the same: they die and they are born at the same time. They all age at the same rate. They all have no feelings, see no colors, and have the same basic features. Everybody is married in the same fashion, and they raise their family in the same fashion. Everyone is pretty much the same.

Equality means that everybody is equal, they have the same rights that are all followed, and they are of the same rank. There is no leader, or someone better, just equality. This does not mean, though, that they are all the same. In animal farm, all the animals weren’t the same, but they were equal mostly. Yet in The Giver they are all the same, yet some people may have a better job, or life, like the Giver himself.

Therefore I can state that those two words are not the same, and were used correctly, since each book has a completely different meaning. Sameness can be Equality, and vice versa, but it is not necessarily that way.

A question of Age?

People become adults when they are ready. When they become responsible, and when they learn the things they need to about life. They become adults at the age when they have experienced enough of life that they know what is right and what is wrong, what they aren’t ready for, and what they are. They learn to judge themselves and their surroundings so that they can make the best choices. They must be both mentally and physically ready for what life is going to give them. They must be ready to step into the world, and do things for the good of society, and everyone in it.

People are never too old for society. There is a point in their lives when they can no longer do what they need to do. It is when they are too old to provide for their families, when they are the ones who need to be provided for, not providing. But that doesn’t mean they are too old for society. They might not be able to provide for society, but they are still part of it. And they were the ones who provided us with what we have, so once they get old, we should begin to provide for them. It is their turn to be the weak and meek, and our turn to be the strong and brave. People are never too old for society, only we can be too new for them.

My work plan for this week:

· Monday- Gather Data

· Tuesday- Begin Data Analysis (to be finished at home)

· Wednesday- Work on Research Paper

· Thursday- Finish Research Paper

· Friday- Get Peer edited, and fix up over weekend.

Cartoon Analysis - Family Dinner

The main visual elements of this picture are the family members, and the dinner table with food. I think this cartoon is trying to say that the new generation will be too technology oriented, and may overuse the technology that is available to them now. The kids will now, instead of talking and communicating, simply post things on the internet for their parents to see. This will disturb family time, and other such activities. It will also ruin the communication with your family, which is what is so ironic about this cartoon. The internet and technology is meant to be a bridge for communication, but in this case that exact technology is destroying the communication inside a family. Technology is meant to help with long distance technology, but it is in turn destroying person to person communication. The speech of the father helps me understand this. But I think it would be more persuasive that even at the dinner table the kid would have a laptop or some way of posting or chatting with his parents without talking.

Vonnegut's beleifs-right or wrong?

Vonnegut is both right and wrong. He is right that we rely on computers too much and should be “doing the becoming ourselves.” This means that the computer is becoming the thing that we humans want to become, and we should be the ones becoming that. But that is no reason to dislike computers. They are very helpful in so many ways. They help us with printing, they help us access things with the click of a button. They even allow you to make what would be so complicated years ago, such as graphs and data and a five paragraph essay, with a simple set of tasks. Yes, we do rely on it a little too much but that is no reason to dislike it. Why should we dislike such a useful tool?

Technology and Me

Technology is anything new, which makes a job or task much easier. These could include electronic devices or something as simple as a knife. Either way it makes something easier to do and therefore it is considered technology. Using technology in school can be both good and bad, because using those technologies will require knowledge of how to use that technology, but once they do have such knowledge it will be easier to do things. But technologies can cause problems because if the student does not have the ability to access such technology at home, then it could cause major problems. Otherwise I think that technology is important.
The five most important technologies are:
• Computers
• Internet
• Medicine
• Clock
• Telephone
The five least important technologies are:
• Weapons
• Diesel Vehicles
• Cosmetics
• Hair Products
• Gaming Devices

End of Quarter 3 Feedback

I feel that at the end of Quarter 3 I have achieved most of my goals which included:

• Having no small, punctuational or conventional mistakes
• Improve paragraphing and dividing the writing into different groups
• Improving and learning some new video editing techniques
• Being able to put together a interesting and fun script for a play or video presentation

For the third goal I did not learn much because I had used VC before, but I did learn a lot about how things can really mess up and how the servers are connected which leads to the slow computers. Other than that I learned that VC doesn't always work the way you want it to.

For Quarter 4 I have decided on these new goals to set up:

• Learning more new and better techniques in creative writing
• Being able to use these techniques in a story that I decide to write
• Becoming a better student and more time efficient so that I do not have problems in high school

Holy War??

Holy War is an oxymoron because war is usually not thought of as holy. A mass killing between two countries isn’t usually considered holy. Holy is more commonly related to something like god or prayers or anything religious, while war is a mass of killing between two armies. They could be of the same countries, or of two different countries. Either way a war is usually not commonly related to the adjective holy. But then why are some wars called holy. It is because these wars are fought for holy reasons. Therefore they are considered Holy Wars. The reason so many people have a Holy War is because anyone who follows any religion thinks that that religion is the best. Therefore when anyone of the other religion says that it isn’t they get angry and want to fight back in the name of their religion. This is considered a holy war but is just like any other war really. Nonetheless most religions don’t allow such violence. Since most people forget at the time though the war still occurs.

Cold War Simulation

During this simulation, I represented the countries of Africa and Europe. Although my partners tried to constantly sell a many countries as we can to the USSR I thought that we should listen to both countries bidding first. I was angered when a representative from the USA came to bid, and my partner kicked them out because he was dealing with the USSR instead. If you really want to get money, you have to let the other side try to overbid and then there will be a constant over bid until one side decides to give up and only then do you get the real good price.

And for the winners and losers, the USA and the USSR are the losers. They are the ones who lost all the nuclear missiles and stuff, while the countries on the side are the true winners, because they were the ones who never had any losses. In the real world though, the countries at peace were the true winners, because they were able to stay off to the side without any losses.

The VC feeling

VC is an awesome tool, not! Although VC is a pretty good tool when it works, if it doesn't work it is a major pain in the butt. Many things go through my mind when I make such a project and the major one is usually: Will my partner know his part? Although I usually trust my partner for that I still feel slightly worried about that. I also get worried about whether things will go according to plan or not. If things work out fine, I usually calm down. But in case things don't work out I am kind of stressed due to the deadlines. For future 8th graders I give you this advice: Never expect everything to work out!

Animal Farm - book and movie comparison

There were many changes between the movie and the book of animal farm. For example in the book it ends when clover sees the pigs and the humans and couldn’t see the difference. But in the movie the animals, after seeing this run away and come back later to find Napoleon dead and gone. In the book the ending was more like the real thing, but in the movie they extend the ending to make it happy. Although I disagree with most of the changes the director makes I do like the fact that old major was shot, because it really shows how bad the humans truly were. Also because of some of the extra additions it made the humans more evil than in the book. So, although some changes were good, some of them were very unnecessary and therefore slightly annoying.

Rough Draft of VC project script

By the way this might not be the final production:

Script for Cuban Missile Crisis Project:

Varun – Studio News Anchor and Fidel Castro

Melissa – Studio News Anchor

Farah – Cuba News Anchor

Script:

Varun: Hello. This is Varun Batta and Melissa Smith reporting from CNN New Delhi.

Melissa: Today, we will be reporting on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Varun: As you must know, there are nuclear missiles being built by the USSR in Cuba.

Melissa: Therefore there is a huge panic in the United States. The building of these missiles is seen as a way for the USSR to have access to firing in the western hemisphere.

Varun: That is right. The island of Cuba is currently right in the middle of two giant boulders, either could be the one to kill it.

Melissa: You see, the USSR is building nuclear missiles in Cuba to protect the latest addition to its empire, but the US is interpreting it as a major threat to it and its citizens.

Varun: But now lets here what Farah Weannara who is reporting from Cuba itself. Farah –

(change of scene)

Farah: Hello there. I am Farah Weannara reporting live from the site of the building of the nuclear missile silo in cuba.

I have with me here the current president of Cuba: Mr. Fidel Castro.

Mr. Castro, we are all wondering, why did you decide to publicly align yourself with the Soviet Union.

Varun (as Fidel): You see I felt that the Soviet Union was like me, we both felt that communism is the right way to rule our country, and because of this I felt that in stead of siding with some stupid democracy like the US, I should be siding with the smart communists of the Soviet Union.

Farah: Ah, we see. But then why are you letting the USSR build these nuclear missiles, which are controlled by the USSR but still in your land. Can’t you see that you are now creating major havoc in the US, which has a clear military advantage over you. Why then are you risking your country like this?

Varun: Well, as you might have heard the USSR is too, afraid of possible US threat and is therefore protecting us not using us. Also, addressing to your question about the danger to the Cuban citizens, you see in the case of such a vicious attack by the US, there will be a complete backup force coming from the Soviet Union to help us.

Farah: Well, thanks for your time Mr. Castro it was very helpful.

(castro leaves)

And now back to you Melissa

(change of scene)

Melissa (alone): Thank you Farah. We will now show you a small clip from the speech the president made 8 days ago: October 22^nd, 1962.

(Clip Plays)

Varun (with Melissa there): Thank you for playing that, Melissa. As you can see the US really is ready to take action and has even sent a naval blockade checking any ship that enters or exits Cuba.

Melissa: Yes. (fidgets with her ear looking like she is receiving some message) Oh and we just received news from Farah that President Kennedy after negotiating with Khrushchev have ended the war. The USSR will remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba as long as the US will not invade the Cuba. The deal has been done. The Crisis is over.

Varun (with Melissa gone to tell the good news): Well thank you for watching CNN New Delhi. Good Night.

(camera zooms out with Varun sitting at table with a laptop and a coffee mug)

Who would I be?

In this situation I would be Clover. I would go ahead with the general public when I can be seen but in truth I would doubt the truthfulness of what was really going on. I wouldn’t completely trust the pigs at all but I would look like I am a good follower. I would constantly check up on the rules like clover does and when I see a change I would not completely believe it. I would also mistrust Napoleon but look like I do. I would be one of those people who look good outside, but in the end I would not believe any of the lies they told me.

Is Military manditory?

In both Canada and India military service is not required and if they did then it could create some problems during world war. Because both India and Canada have been colonized by the French and the English and there arises the question of which countries army should I help. Luckily military service is voluntary and I think that is the way it should be. I feel that if you want to be part of the military then go ahead but if you don't want to risk your life, then you should not be forced to. The only possible reason I would want to join the military is if there is some extreme requirement by my country.

Decleration of Independence summary

When it becomes necessary for a People to break the bonds holding then tight to another People; then they, by the laws of nature, must present their reasons for breaking these bonds. We all know that all men were created as equals and are born with some undeniable rights including Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government has been established to make sure that the people get these rights and when they do not, they have the right to create a new government that will give them their rights.

Recently the King of Britain has been treating the colonist unfairly including taking away all their rules. First he says to make sure that I can see the laws before they are declared, but if the laws ever make it that far then the king just ignores them. The people are there fore stripped of their rights. They do not feel that they should be forced to live the way they do, and they have warned many a time. But because of the ignorance and tyranny of the king we feel that we shall break away.

There fore we are now a united and independent country who has the full right to make its own laws and rules. We have pledged our selves to our country and will give it our lives, fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Thank God the King is Dead

If you need two words to describe the rule of king Coyle here they are: Injustice and Tyranny. He ruled over us just for his own fun and pleasure. We were losing all our rights and then there were those really annoying suck ups. They had no self determination what so ever. They might have had a back bone but now it was bent and cracked. They kept proclaiming their love for king Coyle over and over. All I heard was, "Yes King Coyle. Of course King Coyle. You're the best King Coyle." I was going crazy. Only a few smart people had any self determination throughout the entire thing, an those people really got to rebelling, but of course the king with his might followers took care of any of those rebellions. None the less the kings rule was horrible, and I thank god with all my heart that it is finally over.

Where is the 43rd war taking place?

By using good and useful sources we have estimated that they are currently located somewhere south of the River Santa Maria in Mexico. It is clearly mentioned in both the 43^rd war book and the Nations of the world Atlas that Mexico has had many wars and its own revolutionary party. Also the Santa Maria (Moeri, p.14) is located in, Mexico (Nations of the World Atlas). Lastly, Ignacio mentions that to escape the only border he would need to cross would be the Mexican Border (Moeri, p.197). There for they must be in Mexico.

The reason why Louise Moeri didn't give any absolute location for this book is because it could have happened any where else and throughout Central America, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and etc. (NATIONS OF THE WORLD ATLAS). There wasn’t any need to specify the location because the fact that river Santa Maria was one of the geographical features gives some accurate location, but otherwise, knowing that it was a Spanish speaking country with Roman Catholic as one of the major religions gave ideas of vivid settings. Also, revolutions did not happen only in one specific location, it was carried out all through Central America during one of the many revolutions(The 43rd War).

Sources:

London, England) Collins (Firm :. Collins Nations of the World Atlas. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Moeri, Louise. The Forty-Third War (Sandpiper Houghton Mifflin Books). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

13 colonies cartoon analysis

The main visual elements in this cartoon are: the snake split up into 8 separate pieces. These eight pieces each represent a colony; V for Virginia, N.C. for North Carolina, etc. It is showing that England took a healthy snake which didn’t ever bother them, and split it up into lots of pieces. These eight pieces then became separate colonies of a once, well working snake. The US was taken, divided up, emptied of the American Indians, and then left alone for people to come and build in. It is obvious that the author did not feel to happy about all of this, because the colonies are in the for of a snake and that is usually a hated animal. To really show this, though, the author should have actually shown a knife with England written on it.

To Be A Slave - Reliable?

We can trust the truthfulness of what we read in this book. For one if you look in the back of the book there is a complete bibliography of all the sources that were used in the book. These sources seem to be real sources with all the appropriate information. Also if you check, the in-text citations seem to match up with the bibliography. My third and final reason is that I found another cite that has information on Julius Lester, which mostly matches up with the info on the author in the book. It seems that Julius Lester is an honest and truthful man who really is telling us the truth about slavery.

Bibliography:

"Julius Lester - Home." Julius Lester. 14 Jan. 2008 .

Lester, Julius. To Be a Slave. New York: Dial Books For Young Readers, 1986.

Great Powers Game Debrief

I was the Ottoman Empire in the game. At the start of the game we were one of the weakest countries. Because we felt that it is very important for everything to be equal when buying, we usually did not by many colonies and therefore did not have a rapidly growing economy. But as the game progressed we did have a change in our economy. Also at the start Great Britain and the USA were the most powerful countries. I recognized this immediately and started trying to become allies with both very quickly. Soon enough though, I had to break allegiance with the USA because of a huge war that Great Britain had a huge advantage in. After the war we though that it is most important for us to restock our army therefore we did not buy many industries. I do not think that during the whole game only one thing was most important to buy than the other, but it changed as the game continued. Also our allegiances never really did hurt us, but mostly helped us in gaining more economy. Because we were always on the winning side of the wars, we always got a share of the gain and never lost much except for the armies used in the war.
I learned many things about conflict from this game. Firstly, I learned that during any type of conflict, no one is to be trusted. Also, many conflicts only arise because of economical gain. Third but not last, I learned that the strongest in the beginning of a conflict is not always the winner in the end. Great Britain and the USA were both weaker than us in the end, Great Britain with only 8 economic points!

End of Quarter 2 Feedback

For Quarter 2 I had the following goals:

• Better self editing
• Better reasearch skills, like spending more time researching and researching more thouroughly
• Improve paragraphing and dividing the writing into different groups

I do think that I improved on my first and second goal, but I did not get a lot of time to work on the third goal so this will remain one of my goals for 3rd quarter. These are the goals that I will have for 3rd Quarter:

• Having no small, punctuational or conventional mistakes
• Improve paragraphing and dividing the writing into different groups
• Improving and learning some new video editing techniques
• Being able to put together a interesting and fun script for a play or video presentation